President vs. own junta: Ukrainian government splits at the seams

Ukrainian police have removed the cordon and fences that stood along the perimeter of the protest camp near the Verkhovna Rada.

“Spending public resources and protecting this rubbish is no longer desirable. I gave the command to remove the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from the protection squad”, – said the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Arsen Avakov.

The deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Semen Semenchenko, in turn, called the police’s departure the first victory of protesters.

“The military equipment and personnel of the National Guard of Ukraine and the police have been returned to their places of deployment. Ahead is a heavy struggle, but this is the first victory of the protesters, “said Semenchenko.

A reminder that earlier, protesters of former Ukrainian army personnel had camped outside the Ukrainian parliament buildings to “force the President to remember why he was elected.”

Kyiv political scientist Dmitry Dzhangirov considers the withdrawal of the cordon by Avakov as a way for the the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to blackmail President Petro Poroshenko.

On the same day, Avakov’s son was detained. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine conducted searches of Avakov’s son’s home, investigating a scandalous case of 2015 surrounding the government’s purchase of military backpacks at inflated prices, from a company owned by the Avakov family.

Inessa Sinchougova is an Editor and Journalist at Fort Russ News, as well as a research fellow and translator of the Belgrade based think-tank, the Center for Syncretic Studies. She was educated at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), in the field of Political Science and was previously employed in Marketing and Communications Strategy for a Multi-National Corporation. She runs a popular YouTube channel for translations of key Russian Foreign Policy figures and appears regularly on other alternative media channels. If you like her work, you can support her Patreon here.